


The Hero's Sacrifice

by sarinoxious



Category: Septic egos, jacksepticeye, jse egos - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Gen, Sliiiight gore near the end, uuuuuuh oopsie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-08 13:21:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17387135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarinoxious/pseuds/sarinoxious
Summary: The fire that burns the brightest is often the first one to die out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A tale from the Twisted Disney AU, find us on Tumblr! https://twisteddisneyjse.tumblr.com/

He spent three days alone in the dungeon, a metal collar chained him to the floor as if he was some wild animal with rabies. He couldn’t even stand up straight.

A masked stranger enters and cuffs his arms together before unlocking the chain from the floor, taking it in their hands, and leading him out, as if to take their pet dog on a walk. His legs immediately cramp up from the sudden movement and he falls to the floor, but the masked stranger does not stop, dragging his body over the filthy floor without hesitation.

“Hey! Stop! Where are we going!” his voice is raspy and hoarse from not speaking for so long. The masked figure glances back, but they do not stop, and they do not answer.

He tries his best to scramble to his feet, and the chain jingles as he trots up to the stranger. His gut yells at him to attack the stranger, but his mind intervenes. _I don’t know where I am. This place is a maze, I will never make it out if I attack them now._

So he obediently follows the stranger, through long halls, around corners, up and down flights of stairs. They seem to be walking in the direction of a faint murmur, growing louder and louder as they continue onwards. The grimy slippery stones from the torch-lit dungeon make room for creaky wooden floors, sunlight falling in through windows. Tapestries and paintings decorate the walls, depicting tales from generations long dead.

A door. The stranger opens it, and he finds the source of the murmur. A crowd has gathered in a throne room, they seem restless, thirsty. The masked stranger leads him onto a podium, chaining him to one of the two thrones there, forcing him to his knees.

One of the thrones was grown out of thorns, and the other one, the one he is chained to is made of bones. Bones yellow with age, and young ivory bones, some still covered in specks of blood or bits of tissue.

Human bones.

He gulps as the roar of the crowd diverts his attention. The crowd seems to be focused on the door he just entered through. It’s opened again, and two men step in, crowned heads held high. The first waves to the crowd, clearly relishing in the attention. His robes look like they were woven from the same fabric as the night’s sky, flourishing around his arms as he bows, twirls, and takes the arm of the other man. 

The other man locks eyes with him the second he enters the room. Not breaking eye contact as his partner pleases the crowd. Remaining eye contact as his partner takes his arm and they stride towards him.

Anti perches in front of him, sliding his fingers through Jackie’s hair, his palm cold against his cheek. 

“A little bird told us that you’ve been organizing a resistance… We can’t have that. I would’ve killed you on the spot, but...” he glances over to his companion, “but Marvin changed my mind. After all, we can’t risk making you into a martyr now, can we?” His dark green eyes bore into Jackie’s, whose intense blue eyes burned with a fiery passion.

Without thinking, Jackie spits in his face, instantly wiping the sly smirk off Anti’s face. 

Anti stands, cleaning his face with his sleeve before forcing the air out of Jackie’s lungs with one swift kick. Jackie falls back and tries to roll away, but his chain pulls taut, the collar pressing down on his trachea, making it harder to regain his breath. The crowd goes wild.

He looks up to see the witch named Marvin raise his arms, power flowing out in thick dark rolls of smoke, making a path through the crowd as if they are water drops from the red sea. A single person is left unmoving in the middle. She yelps as she tries to run away, but she’s walled in by the horde. Two masked servants march down the path and drag her towards the stage, her legs slip out from under her as she struggles.

“Get your filthy hands off me!” she snaps, but her attitude drops when she sees who’s sat between the thrones. “Jackie!” She yells, her eyes wild and wide like a cornered doe.

“Emma!”

“Oh, you know each other? What a coincidence!” Anti chuckles. “It’s a small world…” 

“Leave my sister alone, you asshole!”

“Sister?” Anti wheezes, losing his composure as he bends over to regain his breath, his harsh cackle filling the entire room. 

“Surpriiiiise~” Marvin sings, “I told you this would be fun!”

Anti turns his back to Jackie and approaches Emma with the grace of a predator, Marvin following suit. They circle her like hungry wolves, study her with tilted heads and crooked smiles as she trembles under their gaze. Jackie tries to lash out, reaching out with cuffed hands, but the chain pulls taut and the collar around his neck reminds him of his powerless position.

“Don’t touch her!” he barks “If you as much as harm a single hair on her head I swear to-”

“Tsk tsk tsk… those are some mighty brave words for a cuffed and chained man like yourself,” Marvin twirls around to look Jackie in the eyes, magic licking at his fingers.

Emma tries to step towards Jackie, but Anti catches her shoulder, quickly slipping his knife under her chin, pressing her back to his chest as he whispers in her ear. “If you so much as flinch I will slit your fucking throat and make your brother watch you bleed out before gutting him. Have I made myself clear?” 

“What do you want from me?” Jackie hated how his emotions made his voice tremble. “What do you want from us?!” He looked between the two men with tears in his eyes.

“What we want,” Marvin purrs, “is loyalty. From you, and every single member in your pathetic little rebellion.” The mention of the resistance alone is enough to make the crowd behind them bawl and holler with disgust, making Jackie’s jaw drop with shock. 

Are all these people so blind to the truth? How could they be okay with this? With _any_ of this?! It was unfair, unjust! Do they not see how these two men _used_ Jack to seize the throne, the kingdom? Where was Jack, anyway? Shouldn’t he be here? 

His train of thought is interrupted when his sister’s voice brings him back. “Don’t do it, Jackie! Don’t submit to these _fraudulent basta-”_ a knee knocked the air out of her lungs, cutting off her insult. The force of it powerful enough to make her stumble backwards as she gasps for air.

“Don’t do it, Jackie!” Anti mocks before pushing his boot into the back of her knee, forcing her to the ground. He crouches down behind her, growling in her ear “Did I not make myself understood? I said,” he carefully places his knife below the corner of her eye, “don’t. move.” He nods to Marvin, prompting him to continue.

“As I was saying before I was so… _rudely…_ interrupted. What we want is to smother your… revolution, before it has even started. Disband your rebels, and maybe you and your sister will be able to see the sun again.”

“Never!” Jackie spits, filled with determination. “I will never stop to fight for what is right, no matter what. I’d rather die than bow to your rule.”

“How heroic of you. I’m not sure if I should applaud your stubbornness or ridicule your naivety. Open your eyes, little fighter. Look at the scene before you,” he steps aside, gesturing to the room with his arms. His peers all stared at him and his sister with disgust. They’ve got them all wrapped around their bloody fingers. Jackie already knew this, though it was at this moment that he realised just how deep and intense their loyalty was for these two foreigners. But his heart still refuses to accept his loss.

“Jackie,” his sister whimpers, “Jackie please,” a crimson tear rolls down her cheek as Anti’s knife presses gently into her soft skin.

“Give up on your resistance or I’ll skin your pretty sister alive. I’ve been meaning to add some more bones to my throne…” Emma fails to suppress a sob, the hair on her arms rising in response to Anti’s cold threat gracing over her ear.

The siblings lock eyes, silently exchanging apologies, promises, and goodbyes. 

“No answer is also an answer,” Marvin states.

Jackie clenches his lips together and hides all emotion from his face as Anti forces Emma back onto her feet, and drags her away, the storm of her sharp words slowly fading, overruled by raging voices from the crowd, hollering all sorts of obscenities at Jackie and Emma.

“We’ll give you some nights to think about it. I’ll try my best to keep Anti from killing her right away, but you have made him quite mad. Someone’s gotta take those hits.”

“Why not just torture me instead? She has nothing to do with this!” 

“Oh, Jackie. We _already are_ torturing you. Don’t you see?” He walked away, before stopping and turning once more, “disband the rebellion, and your sister goes free. It’s that easy.” and with those words, he disappeared into a cloud of smoke and glitter.

Masked puppets dragged him back to his cell. He didn’t see anyone for five days and five nights, besides the servant who brought him food twice a day. Or maybe it was a different servant every time, there was no way to tell them apart. He didn’t try to speak to them, knowing that they wouldn’t respond either way. Maybe they didn’t even have tongues or vocal cords, or perhaps their lips were sowed together under their pristine white masks.

At night, pained shrieks echo through the halls, and Jackie wonders if they belong to his sister. 

On the sixth day, a servant leads him out of his cell, using his chain as a leash again, but not before adding two additional chains to his wrists. Jackie reluctantly follows, his heart sinking into his stomach. He doesn’t pay attention to the route they take, his mind clouded by worry for his sister. _Please be alive please be alive please be alive._

His hope is shattered into a million pieces as they enter the throne room, Anti and Jack sat atop their respective thrones, Marvin gallivanting around Anti’s seat. His throne has more bones than last time, most notably the skull at the front end of one armrest. Anti’s blackened claws absentmindedly stroke it, tracing the edges of the eye sockets, nails drumming on its forehead. 

“No,” the word leaves his mouth, soft as a summer breeze. “No! Emma!” he lunges forward, but his arms are pulled back, the chains held tightly in the hands of two servants.

“We gave you a choice, Jackie. We made you a generous offer!” Marvin strolls up to him, “and if you decide not to take it… well, we have to hold up our end of the bargain. All actions must have consequences. You essentially left us with no other choice!”

Anti spoke up, describing in all its gory glory how he decorated her with a thousand cuts, carving decorations into her skin, sometimes cutting deeper than necessary, her whimpers and screams the instruments of his orchestra, his knife the conductor’s baton.

He explained how he took it slower than he has ever done, savouring every teardrop, every cry that left her pretty little throat. He mocked her as he replicates how she _begged_ for him to save her, her heroic brother, her white knight. But with every passing second, Jackie let her down, and her high hopes sank deeper and deeper every night. 

And then, the whopping climax, skinning and flaying her torn skin and muscle, stripping the meat off her bones, licking them clean of her blood. He stood up and turned to inspect his work, as he lovingly recalled how he found a place for every last bone, all 206 of them.

Jackie didn’t want to hear it. He tried to cover his ears, but his wrists were still restrained, he could not escape the pointed knives as they cut into his heart. This can’t be true. It’s a trick. It’s a trick! Those aren’t his sister’s bones, of course not! They’re someone else's! A spare servant! Yes, that’s it! Some random stranger, without a face, without a voice, without a name. A maniacal giggle bubbles up in his core, quickly taking over his silent sobs, and he does nothing to restrain it, falling to his knees with laughter.

Anti spins around to face Jackie, taken aback with surprise. Even Jack, who had been supporting his tired head with his hand, barely listening to the whole thing, sat up straight as that eerie sound echoed around the empty throne room.

Jackie had become deaf and blind to it all. Those same words echoing through his head again and again and again, like a mantra. _It’s a trick! Emma is alive! It’s a trick! A trick!_ He was raving like a madman, whispering and mumbling those words to himself, reminding him of his truth.

Marvin just shrugs as he looks down upon the mess that is left of the fierce resistance fighter whose influence they had feared only a week ago. This husk of the man who had the potential to bring them down was in no way shape or form capable of pursuing the ambition of his former self. Mission accomplished.

They released him after a couple of days, and when his former companions found him, the madman he had become, they, too, extinguished the fire of rebellion in their hearts, and bowed to the three kings.


	2. Alternate Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackie makes a different choice, but is it a better one?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <\- this is an alternate ending to chapter 1!

“Give up on your resistance or I’ll skin your pretty sister alive. I’ve been meaning to add some more bones to my throne…” Emma fails to suppress a sob, the hair on her arms rising in response to Anti’s cold threat gracing over her ear.

The siblings lock eyes, silently exchanging apologies, promises, and goodbyes. 

“No answer is also an answer,” Marvin states, and Anti forces Emma onto her feet, grabbing a hold of her forearm and dragging her in the direction of the door

“No! Wait!” The words leave his lips before he realises what they mean. “Wait,” he begs. 

Anti stops and turns, even Emma is taken by surprise.

“I-,” he stammers, suddenly uncertain with hundreds of eyes pinning him down. A soft murmur spreads among the crowd. _Is he gonna do it? Is he gonna bend the knees, kiss the rings?_

“Kneel,” Marvin orders, and Jackie follows the command hesitantly, his body still arguing with his mind. His knees want to run, but he knows this is their best shot. This is the right thing to do. For Emma, he tells himself. I’m doing this for Emma.

He kneels, and a hand appears before him, adorned with an absurd amount of rings, glinting unnaturally in the light. One draws his attention away from the others, an onyx ring on the finger traditionally reserved for wedding bands. Four small white gemstones embedded in the quartz, a slightly bigger emerald in their midst. 

He instinctively leans forward to kiss it, and the moment his lips touch the cold mineral, everything changes.

Thick black fog envelops him, intruding his body through his mouth, nose, eyes, ears. 

He can’t hear, but he doesn’t have to. He can’t see, but he doesn’t have to. He can’t breathe, but he doesn’t have to. 

Outside of his obsidian cocoon, Emma is screaming his name, while Anti struggles to keep her in place. The marks on Marvins skin glow a sickly purple as he performs the binding ritual. The audience is entranced by it all, silently watching, their stunned mouths open in awe.

The spell is complete, and the smoke dissipates. Anti lets Emma go, and she bolts towards the man she sees as a brother. 

But the sentiment isn’t mutual. Jackie is a new man, and his treacherous sister is a smirch from his past, a thorn in his eyes. 

He looks at her, the hate that was once aimed at Anti and Marvin now aimed at her. The rebellious slut, the false cunt, her very existence brings shame to the family name. She’s unworthy, she doesn’t deserve to be in his presence, she doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as him, as his divine Kings. 

He snarls at her, baring his teeth, the veins in his neck throbbing

Emma sees the change, and she freezes in her path. “Jackie? What happened to you?” she turns to Marvin, “What did you do to him!”

“He chose this so you could live and leave. So leave,” Marvin speaks without looking at her, the marks on his skin slowly losing their glow. “Leave, before we change our minds.”

“Unless you’d like to stay by your brother's side,” his cold voice sends shivers up and down her spine, and she whirls around to see that Anti had crept up behind her, his eyes eagerly oogling her body before snapping back to her face, a shrewd grin plastering his face. 

She makes her decision and runs, the crowd parting for her, but not without jeering obscenities at her, their hands pushing her, grabbing her, scratching her, shaming her. She runs, and she does not look back.

Emma leaves the castle in one piece, the thought of her brother doubling the fire inside of her. The rebellion finds her, they ask what happened. She tells them Jackie was killed, as punishment, and as an example. She tells them he died with his chin high, she says he gave his life for the rebellion, she says that he died knowing that they will thrive under her leadership. They will be victorious, they will drive those parasites from the castle. The sun will rise and they will shine again. She tells them what they need to hear, what she needs to hear.

There may be hope after all, but things are looking grim for Jackie. Salvation will come, but it might already be too late for him. He is theirs to keep, their little guard dog. 

“I always considered Jackie to be a dog’s name,” Anti sighs, settling into his throne. He reaches out to pet him, and Jackie hurries over to his master at an instant, closing his eyes in enjoyment as cold fingers run through his greasy hair, a soft euphoric smile taking over his slightly parted lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know which ending you preferred!

**Author's Note:**

> /oops/  
> Dislike the ending? I wrote an alternate version! It's in chapter 2 ->


End file.
